DrewEckhardt

Authorities on flying parachutes like Brian Germain http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf would suggest a lower wing loading for you even if you were current. Parachutes have sharp pointy teeth. Smaller parachutes have bigger sharper teeth like a T-rex. When I stopped jumping for six months due to a horrible sneezing accident, I upsized two sizes and a planform (Spectre 135) for a few jumps and put a few dozen jumps on a canopy a size bigger (Stiletto 120) than what I usually jumped (Samurai 105) even though I had 1500 jumps with most of the last 900 at the same wing loading (my belly got smaller) and a few hundred jumps on that canopy. More than a few jumps under a larger, less agressive canopy would be prudent.

I paid $700 for my last Javelin + Raven Reserve (both big, but that's what I was looking for on rig #3), have sold ZP mains with life left on the lines for $350, and you should be able to find an original Cypres which has been in for its eight-year for $80 trade-in value + $70/year left - $85 * time on batteries / 2 years. If you want an inexpensive air-worthy freefly friendly rig you can find one although it's not going to be just a few years old with a few hundred jumps. Drive a less expensive car. If you're unmarried have room mates pay your mortgage or rent. There are lots of trade-offs you can make so you can stop working later and spend money on the important things (like skydiving and beer) now. Some people pack parachutes for $60/hour. I'd tell the IRS that I was working as a professional skydiver and that my jumps were required to earn the next rating, thus leaving me with zero net taxable income from the activity.

PD has a strict policy on NO dealers being allowed to sell their products for under retail price. This means ddealers are no longer allowed to discount PD products. AFAIK, PD just no longer allows advertised discounts with the stated rationale being that they want people to actually talk to dealers.

Most states allow civillians to own machine guns and destructive devices (which most automatic shotguns would be by virtue of bore sizes beyond .5" and not having a sporting use). You just have to jump through the legal and financial hoops.

Assuming you're not yet 59 1/2, the Feds get 10% of whatever you take out as a penalty. If your credit isn't bad you'd be better off taking out a personal loan for a year or using a reasonable rate credit card. Or if your plan allows (note that 401K loans are due when you leave your job) take out a loan with the interest going to yourself. Federal, state, and local taxes are also due on any withdrawl. You'd be likely to have less than 60% of what's in there.

We pay $60 per hour to get main parachutes packed by uncertified individuals. The same money for three hours of work by a technician with an FAA ticket is still a screaming deal.

uhh..... used for pest control?!? That did seem a bit off to me but I guessed they meant a 22 ?? The only 222 I know of is the 222 Swift. That is a high speed round for sure Or .222 Remington, which is a legal approximation for .223 Remington/5.56x45 NATO in countries which limit private ownership of guns in military calibers.

At about $11.75 a month (assuming you bought a CYPRESS 2 without the separate battery replacement or an original CYPRES from a low-markup dealer when the Dollar was stronger than the Deutsche Mark) having one is cheap insurance. OTOH, I doubt I'll get arround to buying one for my accuracy rig and the one in my wing suit rig is currently out-of-date and uninstalled. You need to figure out your risk threshold and make your own decision.

With his background in parachute design, canopy coaching, and psychology Brian Germain is uniquely qualified to comment on wingloading. http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf Asking enough jumpers (with or without instructional ratings) will get you less conservative recomendations on wingloading, although until you've made 1000+ jumps you won't know whether you're one of those people who gets away following that advice, suffers a single painful injury (usually broken femurs, but some people manage a tib/fib or spinal fracture), or ends up dead.

When you try to fly skydiving approaches into tight landing areas with wierd winds on the way down you do things like crashing into trees. I tried that and while it didn't hurt the first time I saw the potential and got more serious about accuracy with a big J7 so I could crank out dozens of accuracy jumps over a few weeks in the most forgiving environment possible. Accuracy is about size. You need a canopy is big enough that you get comfortable landings when you land it in deep brakes without much flare left. Since PD doesn't make Spectres bigger than 230 square feet it's not an option if you weigh over 150 pounds and even then it's not going to sink like a classic seven cell. It's also not going to be fun the same way as a smaller canopy is. Accept that different facets of parachute sports call for different gear and get more of it. Used gear is not that expensive - I spent $700 for my J7 and Raven III reserve (it'll hold BASE canopies from 222 out past 280 square feet), and if your tastes change you won't loose much money selling it (new gear in your colors is a different story).

1. There are lots of people with rigging tickets. After talking to a handful of skydivers you should have a few names and phone numbers. 2. When my home DZ was without a rigger and having their work done elsewhere they were willing to deliver and pickup customer rigs with their work for no charge. 3. You can ship it to a rigger for a repack with the main removed to save on postage - I've had rigs meet me at Skydive Arizona when I wanted to be legal. Shipping via USPS isn't too bad (about $20 for second day delivery) but insurance is not cheap (~$50 for 5000 in coverage). You have to go to a USPS owned and operated post office to get more than $500 in insurance. When they loose your stuff they have 30 days to find it after you call them up. After that hasn't happened they send you a claims form which you take to the nearest major post office with proof of value (invoice, receipt, etc.). The guys there refund your postage and forward the forms elsewhere for processing. I'm not quite sure what happens next (it wasn't a rig they lost). It stinks that moving even screws up skydiving.

Being in posession of your car keys whilst in your car with the engine off is also considered drinking and driving. Legally speaking you're better off driving home drunk than sleeping it off in your reclining seats until a police officer wakes you up.

Until recently in Colorado it was legal to have open containers but no one could drink while the car is in motion. In Wyoming passengers can drink. And in Montana it's legal to drink and drive as long as you aren't under the influence. The Federal government does hang onto more of the tax money the 13 states without sufficiently strict open container laws collect on gas.

While not technically a grip, toes to knees. It'll upset your flying less, and toes-to-knees will disturb the other flyer less.

Why not just make an inspection/repack sheet passed on to the customer which includes serial numbers, due dates, inspection points, and tools in/out count? It gave me warm fuzzies when my favorite rigger did that and didn't cost much (now days they even give away free printers with every ink or toner purchase).

You'd be able to jump your actual canopy, get a feel for sinking it in on slider up jumps, and perhaps spend less money if you just found a big old skydiving rig. I paid about $700 for my J7 + Raven III which works for 222-280 square foot BASE canopies.

If you reduced your frontal area in proportion to the canopy size decrease and line diameter with its square root, glide angle (disregarding wind) would theoretically not change. Since you stay the same size and line area only decreases with the square root of canopy size, you have a worse lift/drag ratio than you would at the same wing loading under the larger parachute and therefore your glide angle goes down. This has been measured. Some one on dz.com also hypothesized that with drag increasing with the square of velocity, at higher speeds the wind moves you farther back relative to the canopy thus trimming it more nose down. Note that this assumes no-wind conditions. With enough head-wind you'll be able to achieve a higher glide ratio since you have more air speed (for example, in a 25 MPH wind a canop ywith that forward speed comes straight down, while one that goes 30 MPH will be going 5 MPH relative to the ground). With enough tail wind your glide ratio will go down because it becomes about staying up as long as possible and your sink rate will be necessarily higher (if you have 45 MPH air speed and a minute under canopy versus 15 MPH and two minutes with a larger parachute, with a 60 MPH tail wind you cover 1.75 miles versus 2 miles). In practice it usually doesn't matter. With similar suspended weights a conventional 105 square foot Samurai (in brakes) will stay up with a 170 square foot Spectre (in full flight)

The inspection and repack is almost identical to what you do with BASE gear up to the point you put the canopy in the freebag, you have an instruction manual which covers specifics beyond that, and it doesn't take too much to remember the tricks specific to the few rigs you have sitting in your gear closet. I went six months without packing any parachutes after tweaking my back and didn't forget how to pack my skydiving main. It's the same thing. The counter-point I'd agree with is that it's not worth doing for the cost savings. It takes me four hours to crawl inside one of my reserves and squeeze it into the container. $60 is a screaming deal for that much labor.

I weighed arround 160 pounds when I started which gave me an exit weight of 185 pounds, bought a 205 for my first canopy with 12 jumps under my belt giving me an exit weight arround 185 pounds for a wing loading arround .9 pounds/square foot, and sold it in 75 jumps. Brian Germain is uniquely qualified to answer this (he designs parachutes, teaches canopy flight, and studied psychology in school) http://www.bigairsportz.com/pdf/bas-sizingchart.pdf The typical male skydiver with under 500 jumps who makes over 100 a year is not going to be happy jumping what's safe now in a few years. Buying and selling parachutes isn't much of a hassle now that everyone has internet access, and as long as you don't buy brand new and don't buy one in need of a line set you'll be spending under $1 a jump in depreciation whether you buy one canopy or half a dozen. If you shop arround for good deals you can even make a little money. I'd expect to buy 6-7 canopies (meaning 2-3 rigs) before you get to something you'll be happy with for a few years. This will only be expensive if you insist on having color coordinated gear or get too impatient to shop arround. It doesn't take a lot of experience to land a small canopy straight in, with a slight headwind, in a large mowed grass field, without any distractions. It does take a lot of experience and muscle memory (for lack of a better term) to not make things worse when some one cuts you off, you land off the drop-zone amongst obstacles, you land with a tail wind, etc. 100 jumps a size in the beginning increasing to 200 at smaller sizes is not an unreasonable number and perhaps not coincidentally matches up with Brian's Wingloading Never Exceed formula of 1.0 + .1/100 jumps with adjustments for smaller canopies and higher elevations. Only one of the guys I know who downsized faster than Brian's chart suggests is dead. Only a couple took more than a single bone-breaking event (usually femurs, although there were a few tib/fib breaks, spinal fractures, and other injuries). Some of us were lucky enough to avoid doing anything too painful until we learned judgement.

Might help if you accept the proper definitions of those words, not 21st century ones. They aren't referring to wingnuts in Montana. You and I are the militia. In the 21st century US law is clear on this. It's all able bodied males aged 17-44 inclusive and members of the National Guard regardless of sex who may be as old as 63 if they've previously served in the regular armed services. 10 USC 311(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. 10 USC 311(b) The classes of the militia are— (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. 32 USC 313(a) To be eligible for original enlistment in the National Guard, a person must be at least 17 years of age and under 45, or under 64 years of age and a former member of the Regular Army, Regular Navy, Regular Air Force, or Regular Marine Corps.

While not safe, skydiving can be as dangerous as you make it. Jumping smaller parachutes, making agressive landing approaches, and opening lower are things you can choose to do to make it more dangerous. Not getting formal training in flying parachutes, not using all of the safety equipment (AAD, redundant altimeters, helmet), and not staying current are some of the things you can let happen which makes it more dangerous.

It doesn't work. Although crime steadily decreased for 25 years before your 1996 ban it's way up since then. In the four years following the ban, homicides were up 3.2 percent, 3.2 percent, assaults 8.6 percent, and armed robberies 45 percent. Victoria experienced a 300% increase in firearms homicide. While the rate of gun-ownership has no correlation with crime rates (The swiss own more guns than the Germans next door and have a lower murder rate and the Japanese have few guns and a low murer rate) changing gun-laws affects crime. Crime goes up when you disarm victims. Confrontational crimes go down when governments relax restrictions on concealed firearm cary. Some of the criminals switch to other crimes (burglary instead of mugging) which is fine - it's a lot easier and cheaper to replace property than it is to fix any medical problems that could result from the assault which may accompany a mugging. I worry a lot more about the beer in my neighbor's fridge more than whatever arsenal he might legally own. Assuming I have an average chance of being black, joining a street gan, and being involved in the illegal drug trade I'm a lot more likely to be run over by my neighbor when he drinks and drives. Being white makes things a lot better. I'm no more likely to be shot in Seattle (which has legal concealed carry and guns out the yin-yang) than I am in Canada.

It's a mechanism to get people to replace their closing loop well before it breaks. When people are pro-active about gear maintenance they have an intact closing loop which can be exchanged for a new free one. When they get lazy they pay a small fine for being silly.

Is the thug also going to class or is he just wandering the halls? he's going to class, he knows who's got a gun and is targetting them, anything else? Why would he know who has a gun? "Concealed" means hidden from view. With proper concealed cary you don't know who has a gun. This works to the advantage of both the people carying firearms (they can't be singled out by criminals or upset people who lead sheltered lives where they only met good people) and those who aren't (when criminals don't know who'se packing they switch to non-confrontational crimes).

I've personally seen incorrect (weaker) links used on a reserve; slider bumpers not installed; no torque stripes on connector links; sub-optimal bulk distribution that causes pop-tops to not set right (which then might catch on a door); the Capewell reserve ripcord service bulletin not complied with; and bridle routings other than specified by the manufactruer. I'm not a rigger, and would expect people who are to have seen more. One person I know got a new rig where the manufacturer hot glued parts of the harness but failed to stitch them and a rigger assembled and sealed the defective rig. One person I know had a double malfunction (I don't know if the rigging could be implicated in this case) and only had time to deal with the reserve malfunction because he'd had a premature main opening. I've seen third hand reports of molar straps arround reserves; reserve line finger traps not sewn (not discovered on initial assembly); reserve pilot chute fabric stowed under the Reflex decorative cap (this would cause a total reserve malfunction if not used with the catapult); container locks caused by incorrect reserve closing loop length; 50 pound reserve pulls; etc. I trust myself to have a copy of the manufacturer's packing instructions and not to do those things more than I do some other person. I've packed for all but one of my BASE jumps (and that one opened nearly 180 degrees off-heading), and figured that since I didn't trust other people to be packing my only parachute in that case I shouldn't be trusting them to do the same for my only skydiving parachute once I've gotten rid of the main. Apart from that, packing reserves is enjoyable when you don't do too many and aren't on a tight time schedule. Some of us have helped riggers pack our reserves doing all of the mechanical work except for signing the data card and log book.